Audience Parameters

Following are the four audience parameters we need in order to process your email requests in Basecamp. Be as specific as possible in your request, avoiding the use of “all,” since this doesn’t give us enough information.

1. Current Student Status

As a rule, you can only send emails to students in your college’s interest area who have the following status:

  • Inquiries – students who have expressed an interest in Illinois and your college’s interest area
  • Admits – students who have been admitted to Illinois but haven’t yet accepted their offer to attend
  • Accepts – students who have accepted their offer to attend Illinois (it’s important to specify admits, accepts, or both in your request)

Please be aware that we cannot process any college emails to prospects (students who haven’t expressed an interest in Illinois), applicants (students who have applied to Illinois but haven’t received a decision), or high school counselors. You can learn more about audience restrictions on our email send policy page.

2. Student Type

In addition to student status, we also need to know student type—whether the students you want to communicate with are first-years, transfers, or both.

  • First-Year
  • Transfer

3. Term of Entry

In addition to student status and type, we also need to know term of entry—whether a student will be enrolling in the fall or spring.

  • Fall
  • Spring (as a general rule, students with a spring term of entry are transfers)

4. Year of Entry

Provide the year of entry, or when a student will enroll at Illinois. Please note that we cannot email middle school students, as this is against the law.

  • 2022
  • 2023
  • 2024
  • 2025
  • 2026
  • Etc.

Audience Request Examples

Following are a few audience request examples to help you as you work. If you have questions when putting together your audience parameters, email OUA-Contact.

Example 1

First-year inquiries (fall 2022 entry) and transfer inquiries (Spring 22 or Fall 22 entry) with an interest in Applied Health Sciences (AHS)

Example 2

Current Student Status: Inquiries in Crop Sciences & Plant Biotechnology
Student Type: First-Year & Transfer
Term of Entry: Fall & Spring
Year of Entry: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

Example 3

First-year fall 2022 and 2023 Computer Science inquiries from the following URM groups: Black, Hispanic, and Native American

Old Emails As Reference

If your email is a repeat from a previous cycle, it’s helpful to our data team if you reference the old email by sending the Slate link in your Basecamp request. This shows them the population query that was used in the past.

Note that unfortunately, you cannot use the old email link to send the current email. A new Slate email must be created or copied; otherwise, it will not send properly.